Thursday, June 9, 2011

Phil's 90th

Tomorrow is the 90th birthday of the world's most irascible man, HRH the Duke of Edinburgh. In the US we only get the highly polished, heavily edited version of HRH. Around the Empire and Foreign Office he is better known for his not so politically correct mutterings. Here thanks to ListServe are some of his more famous observations.



1. China State Visit, 1986

If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed.

2. To a blind women with a guide

“Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?”

3. To an Aborigine in Australia

“Do you still throw spears at each other?”

4. To his wife, the Queen, after her coronation

“Where did you get the hat?”

5. When asked if he would like to visit the Soviet Union

“The bastards murdered half my family”

6. To a Briton in Budapest

“You can’t have been here that long – you haven’t got a pot belly.”

7. To a driving instructor in Scotland

“How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?”

8. To a student who had been trekking in Papua New Guinea

“You managed not to get eaten, then?”

9. To Elton John after hearing Elton had sold his Gold Aston Martin

“Oh, it’s you that owns that ghastly car – we often see it when driving to Windsor Castle.”

10. On the London Traffic Debate

“The problem with London is the tourists. They cause the congestion. If we could just stop tourism, we could stop the congestion.”

11. To the President of Nigeria, dressed in traditional robes

“You look like you’re ready for bed!”


12. Unknown

“If you see a man opening a car door for a woman, it means one of two things: it’s either a new woman or a new car!”


13. On key problems facing Brazil

“Brazilians live there”

14. To the matron of a hospital in the Caribbean

“You have mosquitos. I have the Press”

15. ‘If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.’ To a meeting of the World Wildlife Fund in 1986.

Happy Birthday sir, may you live forever and continue to share your opinions with the rable.

Toad

8 comments:

Martha said...

We were at Windsor Monday night when they threw "Phil" a birthday party -- a big birthday bash! One of the guests at the B and B we stayed at had ATTENDED said party! He was amazed that "Phil" could party long and late and still get up early and travel to Cornwall for an Official Function.

So Happy Birthday to the dear gent!

Melissa @ I Pick Pretty said...

Alas, I can personally attest to the veracity of #12. And despite outrageous un-PC-isms like #1, I now very much want to have HRH over to dinner. Happy birthday to him.

Anonymous said...

That photo shows the genetic link to son Charles like no other photo I've ever seen, I always wondered from what DNA pool did Charles receive his features, and there it is in his father's face. The hat brought it out.

Dumbwit Tellher said...

Although some of his comments are despicable one must appreciate his frankness in a world coated with far too much saccharin dipped PC'ness. Long live HRH the Duke of Edinburgh.

* I gasped at no.7!

Great post Toad, thank you.

Barbara said...

Yeah, I've read he's a piece of work.

sushisistah said...

While reading this I threw my head back and laughed out loud.

My Dog-Eared Pages said...

I laughed quite loudly at no. 9! A perfectly fun post + look at HRH mutterings.

Shelley said...

Yes, he's quite the character, eh? It's a wonder he doesn't get left at home on his own he's so potentially offensive. That said, I quite liked number 14. Then there is his son, Charles, whose comment to the press about his son's engagement was 'They've been practicing long enough.' I can't think of a more inappropriate less elegant thing to say. I guess that's proof that it's genetic, eh?